Chapter 2 - NATALIE'S WARNING
Natalie entered alone.
She saw Margaret and stopped.
“Did she do that?”
Margaret looked away.
“Who?” I asked.
“My mother.”
Natalie told me Vivian had been violent before. A thrown bowl when Natalie was sixteen. A slap at nineteen. A shove down porch steps years later.
Ryan had witnessed the last incident.
His advice had been the same words he used with me.
Don’t make a scene.
Margaret finally said, “Ryan didn’t hit me.”
“Did Vivian?”
Silence.
“She grabbed me.”
“Your cheek?”
“I hit the cabinet.”
“Because she grabbed you?”
“Yes.”
“And Ryan?”
Margaret stared at the floor.
“He told her to stop.”
Relief started inside me.
Then she finished.
“After dinner.”
My phone buzzed.
RYAN: Natalie is lying. Don’t let her into the mansion.
Natalie had told nobody she was here.
“How does he know?”
We looked around.
A tiny green light blinked near the study ceiling.
A camera.
May you like
One I had never installed.
